First Coast area business news

Family and friends will always share the image of Jack Hord dressed in his Harley Davidson boots, blue jeans and the straw cowboy hat he enjoyed wearing even while giving golf lessons.

But they will remember him best for his unwavering commitment to the Palm Valley Golf Course, which he and his wife, Sue, built in 1989, and his even stronger desire to better the lives of the people around him.

“Jack was something else,” said Billie Smith, an adopted daughter who met Hord about 20 years ago. “He was always there to help anybody. I was in a rough patch in life when I met Jack, and he helped carry me through that. He was like a second father to me. He took me in and gave me a job and helped me get to where I am today.”

Hord died Saturday surrounded by family at the age of 66. There wasn’t a more fitting place for a man who worked so relentlessly to create and maintain Palm Valley to take his final breaths than inside his home overlooking the course.

“There really wasn’t anything that Jack didn’t do when it came to the golf course,” said Bob Walters, who has worked at the course for the past three years. “He handled everything. He handled weeding, applying chemicals and giving lessons. Everyone’s loved getting lessons from Jack because he was so patient. He had some great, great customers who really loved him.

“We’re all grieving over the loss of Jack. It’s really strange without him.”

There would be no Palm Valley without Hord, who was a PGA of America professional and former club pro at Baymeadows and the Amelia Plantation. He acquired 30 acres used to raise horses in 1989 and built the pro shop, driving range and putting green in the fall of that year along with the help of Sue and others.

A year later, the nine-hole course featuring seven par-3 holes and a pair of par-4s was opened.

“The kind of customers we’ve always wanted to attract are fathers or grandfathers teaching kids to play golf, boyfriends or husbands bringing their girlfriends or wives, or the guy who wants to hit a few balls,” Hord told the Times-Union in 2009. “That’s the nature of this place. I get a good feeling when I think of all the kids who have learned to play golf here.”

Hord leaves behind a large family including Sue, whom he married in 1969, as well as a son, Christopher, a daughter, Julie, and Billie.

But what made Hord special, Smith said, was he made everybody feel like family.

“He was definitely a different character, but he was so down to earn and so willing to give or to help,” she said. “You don’t find people like Jack anymore.”